


your face, in candlelight, is

by Windian



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Incest, Incestual smut, Tragedy, Utter trash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2018-03-04 04:50:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2952992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windian/pseuds/Windian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At Kristoff's funeral, repressed feelings bubble back to the surface.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your face, in candlelight, is

"Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine-"

The priest's voice sloughs through a miasma of incense and muggy silence, punctuated by one, stifled, cough. The chapel is warm, sticky with too many souls, too much grief. Queen Elsa could easily blow a little chill into the air, and yet, she does not. Hypnotised by the swing of the incensory, she pulls her gaze away and inclines her head to see how her sister is faring.

Only two years ago did Anna wear her white veil and walk this same aisle, a happy blushing bride. Now, that veil is black. Candlelight throws her face into a flickering shade. She bounces baby Ithunn, but the motion is automatic, without feeling.

Tentatively, Elsa reaches across the gulf between them for her sister's fingers. Anna flinches away.

Elsa wills the words towards her: this is not your fault.

Since they found out about Kristoff's disappearance in the mountains two months ago, Anna hasn't touched her.

"-May his spirit find peace, and God guide his soul."

She stands, inches from her; unreachable.

"Please, all rise for the Lord's Prayer," says the priest.

She stands, fixing her eyes on the oak coffin laid with flowers, empty, for they never found the body.

She thinks: nor is it mine. Don't lay this on me, Kristoff.

Elsa repeats the words she learnt as a child, but they mean nothing; they're strings of vowels, consonants to chew over like a mint while her mind wanders.

How long has it been? Over two years, five months, the analytical part of her says. Two years, five months since she and her sister started playing this dangerous game.

It started simply enough. Kristoff often went away for months at time with his ice harvesting team. Anna was lonely. Elsa was there to soothe that loneliness. They hadn't meant for it to happen.

Though it was always there, Elsa admits quietly to herself. Something was always there. Just hidden; buried beneath the snow.

"as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation-"

The presence of her sister by her side; a physical force that magnetises from her core . She lingers on Anna's unpainted lips. Heat uncurls inside her stomach. Her hands tighten; she presses her thighs together.

Lips mouth the words: "-but deliver us from evil."

...How depraved. She's long made peace with the devil whispering in her ear, but this a new low even for her. Fantasising about Anna in chapel, at her husband's funeral. Dressing her down with her eyes. As her nimble fingers have done countless times before, unlacing silk ribbons, slipping out of satin, all slickness and sharp moans, stifled under hurried hands. "Shh, darling. Shh. Kai's right outside."

The cold has never bothered her, yet she trembles.

Snapping to, Elsa discovers the service has ended. The crowd slips away like a subdued tide. Anna is no longer beside her, but stood with the priest, speaking to him in quiet murmurs. Elsa catches part of the conversation as she falls into step beside her sister.

"-and if I could have a few minutes alone, before the coffin is taken out?" Anna asks.

"Or course, Princess. As long as you need."

The priest bows his head at Elsa. "Your Majesty."

"That was a very moving service. Thank you," Elsa says, hoping the words sound more earnest than they do in her head.

The priest offers his condolences to the widow, but Elsa isn't listening any more. She stares into the flicker of flames on the alter, waiting for the man to leave.

Hail batters the stained-glass windows. Ratat-ratatat.

The wet nurse takes baby Ithunn, who cries. The door keens as the priest pulls it closed. It shuts with a final rattle.

"I thought a funeral might bring some closure," Anna says. The words are like a pebble dropped down a deep well.

There's no response in Elsa. She lays a comforting hand on her shoulder, but her sister flinches away.

"Elsa, please-" she protests.

"I can't even touch you now?" Elsa murmurs.

"You know... you know it's not like that," Anna says. She isn't looking at her.

"Then what is it like?"

Anna's arms are wrapped around herself, as though to hold in her grief. Her eyes on the coffin, she takes a long, shuddery breath. Eyes flick up in paranoia to the door, a feeling Elsa's known all her life- is anybody watching?

She says the words Elsa's long suspected: "Do you think... this is our punishment, for what we've done?"

Elsa's voice is firm: "If God is just, he wouldn't punish Kristoff for our crimes."

Anna buries her face in her hands. "I wish I'd died instead," she chokes.

It's too much. Elsa grabs Anna and pulls her to her. "Don't you dare say that," Elsa says, squeezing her tight. "Don't you know, without you, I.."

This time, she doesn't flinch back. Hesitation, and then the months of her stoic dissolve as she melts into Elsa's embrace. Grips her so tight Elsa can feel her fingernails digging into her back in the outpouring of her grief. Anna holds her hard, but Elsa holds her tighter.

The truth Queen Elsa will never give words: she isn't sad Kristoff is gone. The boy, she thinks, only ever got in the way of her and Anna. The hold he had over her sister she could never understand.

And besides, a small voice inside her mutters: now he's gone, her sister is all hers.

Even with her eyes puffy and pink from crying, her face, in candlelight, is beautiful. Beneath her shawl, the light touches the red in her hair and sets it aflame. Elsa wants to rip the dour thing from her.

She dips her head in reverence, to drink from the font of her slim neck, laying it with chase, ceremonial kisses.

"Elsa, what are you...?" The rest of her question evaporates into a sharp gasp.

So you've missed this too, Elsa thinks.

Anna's neck arches back, exposing above a severe collar another slice of beautiful exposed skin. She kisses this, too, quick fingers going to work on the pins in her shawl. It slips from her hair to pool upon the ground, as Elsa leads a trail of kisses up over her earlobe to take the taste of slightly soured milk and incense from her lips.

A chill overtakes the room.

Her sister's all gooseflesh and silk, hurrying now to reciprocate, pushing her fingers through Elsa's hair, crushing their bodies closer together. Kissing her, hard enough to leave a bruise. Under her corsetry, Elsa's heart hammers in her rib cage. She understands: this is happening. And excitement spikes inside her, breathing in sharp, shallow gasps as frost blooms on stained-glass windows, crackling. The temperature dips, but under the goosebumps Anna's skin is feverish. Her cheeks are pink; she radiates heat. Her kisses are frantic. Frenzied, even, as she tears at the lace of Elsa's gown with trembling fingers. And Elsa behaves in turn. No longer Queen and Princess, but baser creatures, following pure instinctual need. Anna's legs knock back against something and give way. And Elsa is on her knees, scuffing her stockings on the stone floor, hoisting petticoats and frills over her shoulder, the elastic of Anna's garter _splinging_ loose.

And Anna speaks breathlessly: "E-Elsa. Wait."

Elsa's roaming hands pause, laid flat on the gooseflesh of Anna's thighs, who shivers.

She understands why she's called her to cease. Without thinking, Elsa's pushed Anna back onto Kristoff's coffin, scattering flowers and candles clattering on the ground.

The grief climbs back into Anna's expression. "Elsa. This- this is wrong. We can't. Not- not here."

But, the hunger still burns, a flickering smoulder, in her eyes. It won't take much to ignite it.

The coffin. "It's empty," Elsa says. They'd never found the body.

"Yes, but..."

"You don't want to?" Elsa asks.

Hesitation, as Anna's tongue darts over dry lips.

Elsa thinks: She won't say no.

It was her, after all, who begun this dangerous game. After Arendelle was thawed, the nightly scratching at her door like a kitten trying to get out of cold. Crawling under her covers to curl up to Elsa as close as she dared. The lingering touches, glances, caresses, waking inside icy Queen Elsa a heat she didn't know she possessed.

They'd danced closer together tentatively, pausing for breath, stepping back when Kristoff was home, and Anna's eyes would light upon him like he was the sun. And all Elsa could do was look on, insides twisting into snakes of jealousy. That dance ended at last when Anna walked in on her while she getting dressed. It had to end, just as two stars pulled by gravity are fated to destroy one another. Her offer to help ended up with her sister _removing_ more clothes than putting them on.

Elsa thinks: she _can't_ say no.

In the chapel, her surrender is a sigh: "Oh Elsa," she says, as she gathers her into her arms.

Tonight, they dance with the devil, but Anna's face, in candlelight, is an angel's.

_and that's all._


End file.
